Nintendo NX May be Region-Free

NX dev kits are reportedly region-free, and that’s awesome.

I’m not sure how much longer we can wait for an official NX reveal. The internet is going absolutely crazy, and we’re seeing new leaks trickle out on a weekly basis. We’d be thankful for the information, only we have no idea if any of it is true. Nintendo won’t say a word.

A lot of people are talking, though. One of them is Emily Rogers. Rogers has been one of the go-to sources for NX speculation due to her connections with developers in possession of NX dev kits. She compiled a list of all the rumors that have been corroborated or confirmed by her sources, according to the dev kits and prototypes they’ve been using. It’s a fairly optimistic list, and it paints a picture of a highly capable next-gen handheld. I’ll summarize her tweets below.

What Rogers has reported:

Portable screen is 6.2 inches, multi-touch, with 720p resolution

32GB of internal storage

There’s an SD card port

Dock Station prototype has 2 USB ports

NX will support Unreal Engine 4 and Unity

NX won’t match / beat Xbox One, PS4 in raw power

Dev kits and prototypes are region free, rumor has it retail units will be as well

Nintendo plans to support 3DS through 2018

Some of this is previously unreported information. The internal storage and SD slot are both very welcome, but what’s this about being region-free? Nintendo has never given us region-free hardware. It likes controlling content and keeping East and West separated. Don’t you remember all the fuss over changes made to Fire Emblem Fates? A region-free NX would represent huge progress for Nintendo, and I hope that it turns out to be true.

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Matthew loves colorful, grindy, Japanese RPGs and esoteric philosophy - if you want to buy him something for his birthday and need inspiration, that's all you need to know. He is a full-time writer, lover of dogs, and book hoarder. While typically quiet and kind, Matthew does get aggressively competitive in online multiplayer games (sometimes he cusses). Favorite games include: Persona 4 Golden, Final Fantasy VII / Tactics Advance, Dark Souls, Rainbow Six Siege, Soul Calibur 4, Jet Grind Radio, and SaGa Frontier.